A Talk with ISP Forensic Genealogist Bradley Marchant Part One: How To Be A Silent Witness

Summary

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Murder Sheet — A Talk with ISP Forensic Genealogist Bradley Marchant, Part One: How To Be A Silent Witness

Date: March 31, 2026 | Host(s): Áine Cain & Kevin Greenlee | Guest: Bradley Marchant, Indiana State Police Forensic Genealogist

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth interview with Bradley Marchant, a forensic genealogist with the Indiana State Police’s new Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy (FIG) unit. Marchant discusses his personal journey into genealogy and genetic genealogy, demystifies how DNA and genealogical research help solve cold cases, and outlines how everyday listeners can contribute to law enforcement efforts as "silent witnesses" by sharing their DNA profiles.

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1. Bradley Marchant’s Introduction and Background (02:42–06:29)

• Getting Started in Genealogy:
  • Began as a teenager after discovering old photographs at a flea market, leading to a lifelong passion for genealogy.
  • Formalized his training with a degree in family history genealogy from Brigham Young University.
  • Worked at Ancestry.com, appeared on genealogy TV shows, and participated in research projects.
  • Transitioned into genetic genealogy about 10–11 years ago after self-testing and discovering unexpected African and Portuguese heritage due to a previously unknown biological ancestor in his family.
  • Notable moment:
    • “My mother learned she’s 25% Portuguese from the island of the Azores... she never really understood where that came from.” (05:45—06:15)
  • Emphasized how DNA testing often reveals family secrets, noting that 10-15% of test-takers discover “something shocking.”
  • Coined genealogy’s old joke: "Mommy’s baby, daddy’s maybe."

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2. Explaining Genetic Genealogy and Its Role in Law Enforcement (12:15–19:55)

• Technical Foundations:
  • Two-Step Process:
    1. Case selection: Must be a violent crime, usually cold (e.g., murder, sexual assault), and all standard DNA searches (CODIS database) must be exhausted.
    2. DNA reprocessing: STR profiles (law enforcement) differ from SNP profiles (used in genealogy companies like AncestryDNA, 23andMe).
  • CODIS vs. FIG:
    • CODIS uses STR profiles for identifying close family matches or evidence from crime scenes.
    • FIG relies on broader SNP profiles to establish distance relationships with living individuals who have participated in consumer DNA testing.
  • Law Enforcement Databases:
    • Major public databases: GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA (both requiring opt-in for law enforcement searches).
    • Listener takeaway: Anyone can upload their DNA (from any consumer kit) to GEDmatch and opt-in, potentially helping to solve crimes or identify missing persons.
  • Notable quote:
    • “100% anybody can do that. We call it being a silent witness.” — Bradley Marchant (24:06)

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3. How Investigative Genetic Genealogy Works — The Process (24:06–37:35)

• Step-by-Step Scenario:

  • Once DNA is uploaded to a searchable database, investigators receive a list of DNA matches, ranked by degree of relationship (e.g., second or third cousins).
  • Researchers map out family trees for every DNA match, tracing shared ancestry and identifying overlap points.
  • As in example: For a 1975 Jane Doe, if two second cousins are DNA matches, the team finds their common great-grandparents, then traces descendants for potential candidates matching the Doe's demographic data.
  • When closer DNA matches exist (second or third cousins), leads develop more quickly; more distant matches require building trees back to fifth/sixth great-grandparents, which can involve mapping hundreds of individuals.
  • Case complexity increases with factors like international ancestry, adoptions, or incomplete family histories.
  • The more people in public databases, the easier (and faster) cases are solved.

• Memorable analogy:

  • “It’s kind of like a spider web of who’s related to who.” — Bradley Marchant (24:32)

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4. Timelines, Challenges, and “Silent Witnesses” (30:57–38:11)

• Typical Timelines:

  • Fastest case: “Solved” within 5–6 days thanks to a close DNA match.
  • Average case: 2–4 weeks, often working multiple cases in parallel.
  • Difficulties arise when closest matches are distant (e.g., fourth/fifth cousins) or adoptees.
  • Historical factors (e.g., African American ancestry with fewer records), regional differences, and adoption events can slow investigations.

• Importance of Public Participation:

  • The more people who upload DNA and opt-in, the greater the chance of finding closer matches and solving cases quickly.
  • Encouragement to listeners: “If you want to be involved, upload... talk to your relatives, upload their DNA kits... your parents might be a closer match than you would be...” (35:47)

• Silent Witness Concept:

  • Emphasizes that most contributors are never contacted or made public; their DNA sits quietly in the background, potentially unlocking decades-old mysteries.

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5. Record Research and Building Family Trees (41:47–45:21)

• Records and Tools Used:

  • No secret or privileged repositories—Marchant and the team rely on the same records and online tools as hobbyist genealogists: census records, vital records, newspapers.com, FindAGrave, Ancestry.com, and more.
  • For international cases, local resources (e.g., Catholic church records in Latin America, German church archives) may be necessary.
  • Occasionally, rare in-person research at libraries if needed.

• Memorable moment:

  • “We don’t have a secret database of everybody’s DNA hidden somewhere. And we don’t have a secret database of extra records...” — Bradley Marchant (42:40)

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6. Bradley’s Path to ISP Forensic Genealogy and Guarding Privacy (45:21–53:11)

• Career Opportunity:

  • After working for Ancestry.com and a stint teaching, he discovered the Indiana State Police was seeking a genealogist.
  • Became the first specifically-hired genealogy investigator for the Indiana State Police, now working as part of a small growing team.
  • “Indiana is one of the first states to decide to do it in house.” (14:13)

• Confidentiality and Public Reassurance:

  • Privacy is paramount: The genetic information and family trees built for investigations are not made public.
  • Only in rare cases—if absolutely necessary—does law enforcement contact a DNA match to request more info.
  • “We want our listeners to know that your family tree and your personal information is all kept very private so it is not available to the public.” (49:59)

• Being a "Confidential Informant":

  • The public, by sharing DNA, becomes a “silent witness” or “confidential informant” — never named in court or in news reports.
  • Even if your DNA is a pivotal match leading to the identification of a victim or perpetrator, you remain uncontacted and anonymous unless direct follow-up is instrumentally required.

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7. Final Thoughts: The Impact of Genealogy in Law Enforcement (53:11–53:57)

• Broad Impact and Notable Cases:

  • Highlighted recent successes, including identification of both unknown homicide victims and perpetrators (e.g., Herb Baumeister case).
  • Some cases date back over a century, including identities established from Civil War-era remains.

• Listener Takeaway:

  • Anyone can meaningfully contribute to solving crimes and providing closure for families by uploading their genetic profile and opting in for law-enforcement use.
  • Confidentiality, voluntary participation, and privacy protections underscore the ethical use of this technology.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Discovering Family Secrets:
  • “It’s estimated about 10–15% of people who take a DNA test find something shocking.” (06:15)
• On Being a Silent Witness:
  • “I love knowing that potentially my DNA could help solve a crime... how cool would it be if you knew that your DNA was the thing that helped solve a serial killer?” (24:15)
• On the Reality of the Work:
  • “So sometimes we have to kind of abandon looking for a particular tree and move on to another DNA match... But we don’t necessarily always work on one case from start to finish before going to the next case.” (32:50)
• On Privacy Concerns:
  • "Your DNA is essentially the informant part, your DNA is essentially providing clues to help us learn who this person is. Because of that, your information is kept completely private." (52:07)
• On Tools Used:
  • “We use the same Ancestry.com and FamilySearch and Find a Grave and newspapers that anybody can use.” (42:33)
• On Case Volume:
  • “One of my cases, I think it got up to 3,000 people that I had to piece together in this massive network of family trees. My most recent case that was a solve... under 400 people." (53:16)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• Bradley’s Introduction & Personal Journey: 02:42–06:29
• Explanation of Genetic Genealogy in Law Enforcement: 12:15–19:55, 18:17–19:55 (CODIS & SNP profiles)
• How Listeners Can Help (“Silent Witness”): 23:59–24:32, 35:47–37:35
• Step-by-Step Case Scenarios & Timeframes: 24:06–33:38
• Genealogy Tools & Public Databases (No Secret Data): 41:47–45:21
• Privacy, Confidentiality, and Reassurance: 49:40–53:11

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Conclusion

This episode offers a rare, candid look inside the world of forensic investigative genetic genealogy, balancing technical details with accessible explanations. Bradley Marchant’s insights demystify the role of DNA in solving cold cases and stress the immense value of public participation—reassuring listeners about privacy, ethics, and the real-world impact of being a "silent witness." The conversation humanizes both the science and those working behind the scenes, making this an essential listen for true crime and genealogy enthusiasts alike.

Stay tuned for Part Two, where the discussion continues.

Transcript

[Bradley Marchand]

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[Kevin Greenlee]

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[Bradley Marchand]

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[Bradley Marchand]

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[Kevin Greenlee]

I'm Kevin, and today we will be talking with one of the key players on Indiana State Police's new DNA Genealogy Team. Content Warning this episode contains discussion of murder.

[Anya Cain]

Bradley Marchand has always had a gift for genealogy, and he is now using it to help solve crimes as part of the Indiana State Police's new Forensic Investigative Genetic Genealogy, or fig, unit. This team has recently earned praise from Indiana's Governor Mike Braun, who noted in a conversation with Indiana Capital Chronicle that the state's small investment in the unit has gotten dramatic results.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Through his work, Bradley is living out the dream of many true crime enthusiasts. He is helping the police solve some of our state's most heinous crimes.

[Anya Cain]

Last fall, we got the opportunity to speak with Bradley about the unit and its work and and about how any one of us can potentially help solve crimes. My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[Anya Cain]

And this is the Murder Sheet.

[Kevin Greenlee]

We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases.

[Anya Cain]

We're the Murder Sheet.

[Kevin Greenlee]

And this is a talk with ISP forensic genealogist Bradley Marchant. Part one how to be a Silent Witness.

[Anya Cain]

I guess to start off, Bradley, first of all, thank you so much for agreeing to speak to us.

[Bradley Marchand]

Yeah, I'm happy to be here.

[Anya Cain]

And I wanted to just, I mean, open it up to you. Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got interested in genetic genealogy?

[Bradley Marchand]

Well, to talk about how I got started in genetic genealogy, I have to talk a little bit about how I got started in genealogy in general. I started off as a teenager. About 26 years ago, I had found some photographs at a flea market and I thought it would be kind of fun to learn who those people were in the pictures. And my mom had a friend who was a genealogist, and so my mom got me in touch with her friend who helped me start to figure out who was in the photographs and Then it gradually just ballooned from there because I learned that I was actually pretty good at doing genealogy. And I've always loved, like, true crime and unsolved things, you know, like an unsolved mystery or figuring out, you know, from clues in a record what that could be saying. And so I found out I was actually really good at it. So then I ended up deciding to go into it professionally. So I went to Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where I graduated with a degree in family history genealogy. And I always tell people, yes, that is a real degree, because it doesn't sound like it's a real one, but it is a real degree and people really do study it. And from then, I have worked for a lot of different organizations. I've done some episodes behind the scenes of who do youo Think youk Are? There was a TV show called the Generations Project that was filmed in Utah that I was both on camera for as well as did behind the scenes for two seasons. And I've [e-mail] and then now I work at the Indiana State Police. When I started to do genetic genealogy was about 10 or 11 years ago where I decided to buy some ancestry.com kind of ancestry DNA kits for some relatives of mine. And I didn't think I would find anything interesting because I've been doing genealogy for a really long time. And when I took a DNA test, I opened up the results and I found African DNA in me that I was not expecting. And so I started analyzing that DNA to figure out where did that come from. And I learned that my grandfather actually had a different biological father than who we had known. And so his biological father was a mixed race Portuguese man who lived a few blocks away from my family. And we didn't know that we were coming from that family, but it showed in the DNA results just how closely we were connected. So I got to tell my mother, who was in her 70s at the time, that her biological grandfather was this man that she'd never heard of. And not only that, but then it kind of changed our racial background. So my mother learned she's 25% Portuguese from the island of the Azores. And my mom didn't know this, so she grew up kind of being an olive skinned woman with dark curly hair. And she never really understood where that came from. And then we figured out where it came from.

[Anya Cain]

How did she react?

[Bradley Marchand]

She was pretty shocked. And it's kind of hard to explain how she reacted because I gradually revealed it to her because I wasn't sure at the Time initially I said, how come I'm not finding any connections to your paternal side? Why am I not finding any connections to your paternal grandfather? And so eventually she. We just kind of like turned it into a bit of a joke more than anything. And so I ended up teaching a class at a conference once. And it said, the title of it said, I have five great grandfathers and four great grandmothers because we consider the non biological great grandfather still a part of our family. In fact, the family photos connected to that side of the family are still hanging in my house, and they're still in our family photo albums. We still visit those, you know, relatives in the cemetery and place flowers and different holidays, even though they're not biologically related to us. And then we have this whole other side of the family that is, you know, mixed race, African, Portuguese, kind of Middle Eastern and even South Asian mixed in there that, you know, we're still connected to them biologically, but we're not connected to them emotionally. We don't really know those people. So it's been a little bit of a journey for me, but my, my mom has taken it really well, considering, you know, I basically changed part of her identity. And so it was really, it was really exciting as kind of a baptism into genetic genealogy to experience what people feel when they do find unusual things in their family history. It's estimated about 10 to 15% of people who take a DNA test find something shocking. So then they might find a. There's a. There's a joke that in genealogy you have. You are. You have mommy's baby, but daddy's, maybe. So in genetic genealogy, you end up kind of proving sometimes that, you know, your mother is who you think it is or the mother of your ancestor is who you think it is all along, but maybe the father of that ancestor is somebody different. And it happens more often than people realize. In my own kind of network with friends and relatives and in laws, we have multiple half relatives that we didn't know about, a half first cousin or a half nephew. We have people that have found out that they had aunts and uncles that they didn't know about, brothers and sisters, and in my mother's case, a different biological grandfather. And I guess part of the journey with my mother and myself is my mom had to realize that she never really got to meet any of her biological grand grandfathers in life because one died when she was a baby and then one she never really met because he was not known to us. In addition, we don't know the circumstances of how my grandfather came to be. We don't know whether it was a one night stand or was it non consensual, was it a long term affair, Was it a one time thing? We really don't know because it happened 100 years ago. And it's not as if our family is going to be talking about it. We just know biologically here's where it is and genetically here's where it is. But we don't know the circumstances. And for a lot of people that is the case. So when they do genetic genealogy, they don't know the circumstances when there is something that different. So, you know, I've, I've helped some people find out that their parent was adopted. They didn't know and maybe the parent didn't even know because one time in history it wasn't common for people to talk about adoptions. And genetic genealogy is kind of opening up those doors. So that's, that's it in a nutshell as far as my genealogy history. But I have been doing genealogy for a really long time and genetic genealogy for a pretty long time as well. Not only for law enforcement, but genetic genealogy is most commonly used for things like things like an adoption or we call them unknown parentage event or a non parental event. Sometimes they're called non paternal events because usually as I said, the mommy's baby and daddy's maybe generally when there is a non parental event, it usually is on the paternal side. But I've even helped people find out that their grandmother had a different biological mother who maybe died at birth and then the father remarried right after and then that woman raised the child but was not genetically related to the child. So those things happen too, but it's less common, it still happens. And genetic genealogy is really kind of opening the doors to those closets with the skeletons in them and exposing them sometimes 100 or 200 years later, which is really kind of shocking. I don't think our ancestors are expecting that their secrets are getting laid out on the table like that.

[Anya Cain]

No. Through DNA, something they're not even aware is a thing back then. I mean, it's truly fascinating. And you're really getting to uncover so many different secrets, whether that is something in a law enforcement case or something in just a personal family history. I do want to ask you, we're not very technical people. We don't, you know, English major, history major, how exactly does genetic genealogy work? Like what is the process of putting all this together? I feel like people have tried to explain it to me a Number of times, and I always find it a little bit confusing. So how would you sort of sum it up?

[Bradley Marchand]

Yeah, so I can sum up the process in two ways. One is how is it determined what kind of case we're going to do? And I guess we can start there. Before we do genetic genealogy, on any case, there are a few factors that have to come into place. So it has to be a violent criminal case, so it has to be something that involved violence. So most commonly murders, sexual assaults. But there are other lesser common cases. So it could be like a. Like a. Like a. Like a burglary where there's a person involved and there's even talk of bank robberies and terrorist attacks that it could potentially be used for. The. The case usually has to go cold for a long time before they turn to forensic investigative genetic genealogy. Part of that is also because most of your listeners aren't going to be aware, but genetic genealogy in law enforcement in this way has only been used since 2018. So it's really just six or seven years. And there are still local agencies and police agencies that are starting programs. So we're actually. Indiana is one of the states that is kind of like a leader in having it done in house. So generally there are outsourcing companies that people use to analyze the DNA as well as to do the genetic genealogy. So a lot of those cases that you see on tv, a lot of them are being solved by these large companies. The difficulty with that is there's a lack of control, there's a lack of local laws and local restrictions in place. And it also gets expensive. So there are a lot of states that are now looking at doing it in house. Indiana happened to be one of the first states to decide to do it in house.

[Anya Cain]

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[Bradley Marchand]

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[Anya Cain]

What's the difference between those two types?

[Bradley Marchand]

So one tests a smaller amount of DNA, they look at very specific markers and that is the type that is used in law enforcement for making identifications during crime scenes. So that would help us know if that person person is indeed a close relative of a missing person, for example, or if that person's DNA is in fact the DNA found at a crime scene. So let's say there's a crime scene and there's blood left behind from the perpetrator or the possible person of interest. That DNA from the, from the blood at the crime scene would then be put into CODIS under this, it's called an STR profile. They would research, they would analyze the STR profile and that just looks at the DNA markers at certain areas of the DNA. In order to do fig, we can't use the STR profile, we have to do a SNP profile or SNP profile. So we have to do a SNP profile which is more like the DNA test coming from somewhere like ancestry DNA or family tree DNA myheritage. All of those testing Companies, they have SNP tests rather than STR tests. So after we find a potential case. So let's say we do have a violent case, it has gone cold for 20, 30 years and we still have the DNA available because sometimes the evidence gets lost. Evidence has been stored improperly because people did not understand DNA at the time or for whatever reason it's not available. Maybe they had already used all of it in order to make the STR profile. But in general we have a decent amount of cases that, that we can still reprocess. So we have to reprocess that DNA for a SNP profile and then we upload that DNA into user friendly databases for law enforcement. At this time there are only two that are prominent. So there's one called GEDmatch or GEDmatch that is a database where you can upload your DNA from any database test that you have taken. So if you have taken an ancestry test and your Brother has taken a 23andMe test and you want to compare the two, you can then take those two tests and upload them to GEDMatch so you can compare them without having to take another test. GEDmatch is one of the main companies that we use for identification in law enforcement. The other database is family tree DNA, which is actually the only one that you can take an actual test that will automatically go into a database where law enforcement can use it. But both companies now require you to opt in for law enforcement use. So for anybody that is interested in doing so, if you've taken an ancestry test, or if you have relatives who've taken an ancestry test and you want to help law enforcement, you can upload your DNA to GEDmatch, opt in for law enforcement. Chances are you'll never be contacted. But your DNA could end up helping to solve a crime or to help identify a missing person, a Jane or John Doe. It could be used for multiple reasons in law enforcement. But it can also be used to help potentially an adoptee find their biological family. Or maybe somebody's looking for their birth father because they never knew who he was. Your DNA could end up helping to solve that for them.

[Anya Cain]

So is it fair to say that that's just something everybody at home can do tomorrow to actually help solve possibly cold cases?

[Bradley Marchand]

100 anybody can do that. We call it being a silent witness. So I love knowing that potentially my DNA could help solve a crime. Now one thing I do talk about is not only is your DNA uploaded into that database helpful for now, but that could Go on years after your death that your DNA could still be used to solve genealogical mysteries or even crimes. I mean, think about how cool would it be if you knew that, you know, your DNA was the thing that helped solve a serial killer, or your DNA was used to identify your third cousin that you've never heard of that went missing back in the 70s. But your DNA is the key piece of DNA that is used to solve that person's identity after. I'm getting a little distracted because I want to get back to explain how this is done because it is kind of interesting to me, but it is kind of probably foreign to most of your listeners. Once the DNA is uploaded, we get a match list of people that share DNA and it tells you how much DNA they share. And with the different databases, we can play with it where we can look at how much DNA does that person share, share with this other person to know how closely are they all related? It's kind of like a, like a spider web of who's related to who. So we have an identity of somebody that we're trying to figure out, but we have the identities of multiple of their relatives. So some of them might be distant relatives that share just a small portion of DNA and others might be closer, maybe a second or third cousin. In general, we really would love to, to always have second and third and fourth cousins because those are oftentimes extremely helpful and realistic for us to find. It's rare that we're going to upload a DNA profile for a serial killer and have their parent or grandparent or child already have taken a test. It's much more realistic to think, oh, their second cousin twice removed or their half third cousin has taken a DNA test, has then uploaded it. So we then build the family trees of a bunch of these different relatives. For one of my most recent cases, I ended up having to build about 20 people's family trees so 20 different DNA matches to then find out how they are related to each other and then determine if those people are probable ancestors of the person of interest. So let's do a short scenario. Let's say we're looking for a Jane Doe. Her body was found in 1975. They have part of her DNA still saved. So we can still process her DNA for this newer test, this different type of test called a SNP test. We do that and we find, let's say, say let's do a good example. Let's say we find three or four second cousins. We will build all of those second cousins family trees and look for ways that they overlap. So let's say we find two second cousins and they share a set of great grandparents. Depending on how much DNA they share with the Jane or John Doe helps us to determine how many generations we maybe have to go back. But in general, if they're second cousins, they're going to share great grandparents. We then take those great grandparents and then we trace all of their descendants down until it's until as far as we can go or until we know approximately when that Jane Doe was born. So we take those descendants down, then we look at another group. Let's say we have a third cousin and a fourth cousin who are DNA matches. We build their trees to find out how they're related to each other and then we find their common ancestors. Then we trace their descendants going down, looking for ways from those two groups where they overlap. So, so maybe a great grandchild of the first group married a great, great, great granddaughter of the second group. Then we see where those two groups overlap. And depending on how closely that person might be related to the individual, helps us to determine are we on the right track. But generally if we find out how two groups intersect, that's a pretty good chance that we're on the right track. So then if we're looking for a Jane Doe, we might start looking at known missing persons cases. We might start looking at people in the family tree who just kind of disappear from records because not all Jane and John does are actually reported missing or if they were reported missing, it might have been lost since the digital age. So that missing persons file might be in a small police record, on paper, in the back of a filing cabinet and has not been posted onto some of the national databases. And they might not have any living relatives who have provided their DNA for codis. If they had, the case wouldn't have ever had to go to FIG because it would have been solved through a CODIS match. So it generally involves building a whole lot of family trees, looking for ways that they connect, building down from those connections, knowing that our person of interest is probably amongst their, you know, amongst that group. That doesn't factor in things like adoptions or non parental events or situations where, you know, it's not ideal. And in most situations we don't have multiple second cousins that we're working with. One of my current cases, the closest match is probably a fourth or a fifth cousin, meaning that I have to trace back to fifth and sixth great grandparents looking for common connections. And you can imagine when you're building a family tree and you have to go back to fifth great grandparents. Just how many people we're talking about can be pretty daunting because you have to do the math real quick. You have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, 16 great greats, 32 great great greats, 64 great great great greats, and then 128, if I'm doing the math right, fifth great grandparents.

[Kevin Greenlee]

How long does it take to go through that process and do something like that?

[Bradley Marchand]

So one of my most recent cases that I worked with, we had a decently close match. It's my fastest case that I've ever done from start to finish was, I believe it was solved on either day five or day six that we had a lead that we could go to. And in genetic genealogy, we don't tend to use the word solve. We tend to say that we get a lead because that's really what it. What it is. But I got a very strong lead to a known missing person five or six days into the case. So that's. Now how many people did I have to build? I probably built six or seven different family trees going back, I think on one of them I had to go back about 200 years. And others I had to go back about. I think it was about 1840. I had to build that tree going back. So that was a really fast case. Generally it's going to be, I'm going to say on average, it's going to be about two to four weeks for an average case. But we don't necessarily always work on one case from start to finish before going to the next case. Sometimes we are juggling multiple cases of at the same time. But yeah, it can take a couple of weeks. And the, the closer the DNA matches, the faster it tends to go. But that's not even always the case because sometimes, you know, and on one of my cases, my top match is an adoptee. So then I have to. Yeah, so he is my closest match. He's an adoptee. I have to verify his family tree to then try to find a common connection to other DNA matches. And in some cases, there are no shared matches. Meaning, like if I have a top DNA match who shares, you know, let's say 200 centimorgans, if the only shared people in that network, that kind of spiderweb of, of cousins, shares only a very minimal amount, you know, let's say 10, 20, 30 centimorgans. That's where, you know, to give a perspective, I have a. My mother shares a DNA with a cousin of mine who's on her DNA match list and they share 12 centimorgans. The common ancestor was born in 1698.

[Anya Cain]

Oh, no.

[Bradley Marchand]

So it gives you kind of a perspective that sometimes you share DNA with somebody, but it's far enough back that we can't find that connection in a realistic way. So sometimes we have to kind of abandon looking for a particular tree and move on to another DNA match where maybe there isn't an adoptee or maybe it's something a little bit more. More straightforward. So the case that I'm currently on, I have now found, I think, about six people. How they're all interrelated to each other, but they're all distant matches and it's not close enough that we're going to. Based on the matches that we currently have, it's not realistic for us to solve that case or provide a lead to the investigator for your listeners. I keep using the word solve, but I know in our case we talk about providing leads to provide a lead to the investigator. On this one particular case I've been working on, we need better DNA matches. So I'm currently working on connecting with other genealogists that are researching the same families, asking them to upload to GEDmatch to see if we can get somebody that's a little bit closer. So far, everybody that has responded is still a pretty distant match, if they are a match at all. So eventually it will be solved. But it's sometimes they're not very straightforward and other times they go pretty quickly. So you also have to factor in things like where is the ancestry of that person coming from? So researching somebody who is, you know, coming from Midwestern, German and Swedish ancestry is different from researching somebody whose family is African American from the South. The genealogy principles are the same, but the record availability is going to be very different. The amount of people that have taken DNA tests is very different. The amount of people that have been uploaded to GEDmatch can be very different. You also have to factor in history. So if you're tracing a John Doe who was African American, you don't have as many records going back as far as somebody who maybe does have Swedish and German ancestry from the Midwest. So there are a lot of factors that go into how long a case takes. The general rule, though, is that the more people that upload, the faster these cases are going to go because we have more people that we're able to test against. So we can take that DNA profile and test them, get as many matches as we can to then hopefully Find the answer as quickly as possible. But that's where we need more people to upload. So as many people as are willing to upload and not just, you know, if you're a listener here and you want to be involved, upload, you know, talk to your relatives, upload their DNA kits because maybe your, your parents might be a closer DNA match than you would be, but your brothers and sisters might have different matches or maybe your brothers and sisters in law, that opens up holy new doors. Obviously get permission from them, but as many people as possible to get into these databases will be helpful. And you know, people have the control over the, over whether they want to opt in for law enforcement or not. And people also can change that if they decide that they want to remove the opt in for whatever reason if they're not comfortable with it. All it does is basically give us access to looking at shared matches and whether their DNA connects to the people that we're trying to find.

[Anya Cain]

Yeah, it's so important and I hope people do hear that and get interested because it's a way for everyone to actually help solve cases in a really concrete way. Like in a really immediate way too.

[Bradley Marchand]

Yeah, like if you think about it, most people that are listening to this podcast, they're probably never going to actually be on a, you know, at a crime scene at any time. I mean, hopefully not. Hopefully. Unless that's their job. I mean, I hope none of the listeners here are ever, you know, victims or happen to be present at a crime scene.

[Anya Cain]

Don't jinx our listeners, Bradley.

[Bradley Marchand]

But, you know, but it is a way for people to be involved in it without being trained law enforcement. You know, as I mentioned at the beginning, I am, you know, I'm a big fan of Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack. I still watch them to this day. And now with the Internet, I can look for updates on the cases. And it's fascinating because some of them have been solved through genetic leads and through DNA, where a lot of these cases would probably be cold for the rest of eternity. I mean, the oldest, the oldest case that I know that I can think of at the top of my head was a skull that was found in, I believe it was in New Jersey. But if anybody here listening knows better, I apologize. But I, I read this article about a year ago and it was from a skeleton, a skull that was found on a beach. They started to do fig research on it and they found out it belonged to someone who was in, in a shipwreck. I think it was like in the 1860s or 1870s, it was a really old case. And those kinds of things are being solved through genetic genealogy where they would probably never be solved otherwise. And for some of our listeners, they know that there are some pretty famous cases in, in Indiana there's Herb Baumeister who was a real popular person for documentaries and now all over social media when they're talking about it, his victims are, we are in the process of doing that. The DNA for CODIS as well as if there are new victims that are found, then those are potential, potential people for FIG in the future. We did do FIG for part of one of those cases as well where the person was identified and that kind of, those kinds of mysteries are going to be solved right and left, especially if we have people getting involved by uploading. And in general, I will also let the listeners know here at the Indiana State Police we make it a habit to try to not reach out to people if we can avoid it. Every so often we have to. So if there's somebody's a DNA match and we can't find their family tree, we can't figure out their identity, sometimes we do have to reach out. But I would say of the. Let's just do a round number. Let's say I've researched 100 different DNA matches for the various cases that I've been working on. I've probably only had to eat email 4 or 5 of all of them. So we're really a small percentage. So we're not going to bug you about your family tree unless we absolutely have to. In addition, the, the kits that we upload, they're kind of on a hidden part of the website. So if that person is a closer relative of yours, you will not know just by looking at it. So, so even if the person is your fourth or fifth cousin or if it turns out it's your missing first cousin that has been missing for 30 years, you won't see that kit when you upload to these online databases, but you might ultimately find out about it when the investigator reaches out. If we come to the conclusion that contacting you is necessary. Wow.

[Anya Cain]

I do want to ask you because you've talked about all this in depth research and is that just looking at like, I mean like newspapers.com and seeing old obituaries, Is there more to it than that? Are you going back through like clerk court records or how does that, how do you piece together this story?

[Bradley Marchand]

It kind of depends on where the people are from. So right now one of my cases is in Latin America. So I'm doing Catholic church records and civil registration more than anything else. But then there are other, you know, other cases that I've done. A lot of our cases are here in the Midwest because we are working in with Indiana victims, Indiana families, for the most part. But so far I have probably researched in just for Indiana State Police, by the way, I've researched in probably every state in this country. But in my 26 years of doing genealogy, but just for the Indiana State Police, I probably researched in a dozen different states records, depending on where the family trees are coming from. So we will use things like online birth, marriage, death records. We use newspapers,.com websites like findagrave. The same websites and tools that are available to the general public are what we use. So one kind of false narrative that you might hear is that the Indiana State Police or that police in general have a whole bunch of secret databases that we use for genetic genealogy. I can tell you that we use the Same, the same Ancestry.com and FamilySearch and Find a Grave and newspapers that anybody can use. So we use the same. We utilize the same materials. So we don't have a secret database of everybody's DNA hidden somewhere. And we don't have a secret database of extra records that we can't. That the general public doesn't have access to. So, yeah, so for example, my current case, I'm using a lot of things in Spanish because I'm doing a case that's based in Latin America. I have one past case that I had to use German church records. So I had to research a family in Germany to determine which of their children came to the United States. So I knew which children to look for in the United States. And I've also had to use court records. Every so often we have to, you know, maybe utilize a. Outside of an online repository. So I actually went to the Fort Wayne Public Library and I utilized some of the books that they had there. That's a rarity, though. So generally we don't have the capability of doing those kinds of things. But it just happened to be that this book that I needed happened to be in Fort Wayne. And they have a huge genealogy section up there. So. But generally, yeah, we are using the same records, census records and obituaries and marriage announcements. Anything that, you know that your crazy aunt that does genealogy is using. So it's a lot of the same. Yeah, everybody's got a crazy aunt that does genealogy.

[Anya Cain]

I feel like I'm my own crazy aunt. I don't do genealogy. The other day on newspapers.com, i was able to link a serial killer with a brother who also killed somebody of his. And I was like, I'm cece Moore now. You know, it was just a brother. It was. It was not very impressive, but I was very excited.

[Bradley Marchand]

And the thing is, like, most of us don't have a chance. You know, I have this rare opportunity to be working for the Indiana State Police. And actually finding this job was really a unique experience, too. Tell us about that.

[Anya Cain]

I do want to know more about that.

[Bradley Marchand]

Yeah. So I had worked for Ancestry.com in their research firm for a number of years, and long story short, I ended up leaving that position and I temporarily became a school teacher. So I worked as a school teacher for about a year, year and a half, and a friend of mine knew that I lived here in Indiana and had seen on a blog post about this, you know, forensic genealogy job that was opening up in Indianapolis. And so he sent me the link. And it's really interesting because this is a friend that I've known since byu, since I was in college, and he's actually helped me get multiple jobs in the past. So he's kind of like my own personal job, headhunter, I guess. And so he messaged me and I said, you know, I don't know if they would even consider hiring me. There's a lot of really talented genealogists here. Here in. In Indiana. There's a lot of great genealogists all over that they could be hiring. But I reached out and I think it was posted. I want to say it was posted in. In April or May, and I reached out right away. I got a job interview in. I think it was in June, maybe it was in May, I can't remember anymore. But I had this job interview I didn't hear anything from while, and I thought, oh, they must have hired somebody else. And so. But then I get a call one day saying, we want to go forward with more interviews and talk to you about it, do background checks and. And things like that. And I was on vacation in Utah visiting with my relatives out there, and I got the phone call that I was accepted and they offered me the position. And then I had to let my school know that I was not. Not going to be coming back. So mid summer, I had to let them know that they had to find a replacement for me. And I then became Indiana, the state of Indiana's first forensic investigative genetic genealogist, hired specifically for the police. But I do want it known that I'm not The only person that does that does this in Indiana for the Indiana State Police. I actually have a team of several other co workers who are forensic scientists who handle the DNA processing, but then they also are handling the fig research. So it's not just one person here in Indiana that is doing it. There are multiple here working for the Indiana State Police and they are working on cases and one of them has just recently submitted her first case and it was a success and she's now on case number two and it's very exciting. We actually just essentially launched this year. So, so my first case, I started it like the week of Christmas of this past year and we really started to get kind of, kind of going late spring. So the fact that we already have success and we're just a few months in and it's just kind of the beginning because at the same time when with this being a new program, we had to come up with the rules and regulations, we had to come up with our standards, we had to come up with the scientific sides of things. Since coming here, I've had to learn a lot about the science which I, I don't come from a science background. And so, but for me to learn how, how is the DNA processed and at least some of the generalities with that and you know, the legalities of it and, and confidentiality, I want everybody also to know we take confidentiality very seriously. So we don't share your family tree. It's not public. Your, if we research, you know, let's say I'm, I'm researching the two of you and I'm trying to figure out how you two might be related to each other, how you're related to some, somebody.

[Anya Cain]

We're married.

[Bradley Marchand]

That doesn't mean that you're not distantly related to each other, but you know what I'm saying. But you know, if I'm, if I was researching your family trees because maybe you're part of a case, you would probably never know it. But then also your privacy is kept confidential. So, you know, some of these cases will result in arrests being made. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I mean some, sometimes these people are maybe a serial killer, but with the Indiana State Police as well as other police agencies. But I can talk specifically about the Indiana State Police. We want our, listen, the listeners to know that your family tree and your personal information is all kept very private so it is not available to the public. No one will know that you're part of, part of it. And if your information was ever sent to, you know, let's say the family tree did have to be sent into court, you know, where we have to send documents, everything would be redacted, so your information would all be kept private because your identity doesn't necessarily matter to the case. But knowing how much DNA you share in this kind of network to the. To the person of interest does matter, matter, you know, so. And I will say, I mean, it's close to about 50% of our cases are unidentified victims of homicide or potentially sometimes they're not even of homicide. Sometimes people just pass away of natural causes in. In a public place and they're not identified, such as people that are, you know, homeless or unhoused or things of that nature or migratory people. So, and in that. In those. In those cases, if it's an unknown human remains case, there's no court case involved, you know, at least not with the identification of the person. So in all likelihood, all you'll never be contacted. No one's going to be bringing you into court if you're the third cousin to a serial killer, you know, and

[Anya Cain]

you're not going to go on the news and say, oh, we found it, because we linked it to this guy, Kevin Greenlee, and here's the story.

[Bradley Marchand]

Yeah, probably not. I mean, I would be very shocked, but, like, I mean, I don't know how you would feel about that, Kevin, to be on the news, but I

[Kevin Greenlee]

wouldn't like it very much.

[Bradley Marchand]

Yeah, but, like, you know, in all likelihood, I mean, that would be so absurd to have that be a part of it. That's why we call it being a silent witness or a silent in. In the term that we use. One of the terms that we use is a confidential informant. Because essentially, you know, let's say, Kevin, you were third cousins to a serial killer, okay? Your DNA would then be used to help identify the person. But because it is considered a confidential informant, because your DNA is essentially the informant part, your. Your DNA is essentially providing clues to help us learn who this person is. Because of that, your information is kept completely private. So your family tree is not published, and your information would not be sent to the court, so you wouldn't have to worry about being subpoenaed in, because your. Your testimony would just say, I am who I am, and this is my family tree. They would never call you in for that. So. But, you know, good job, babe. Your DNA helps solve a serial killer. You know, you did it. That's pretty cool.

[Anya Cain]

I mean, I think some people would want to be like, yeah, that was me, but I'm sure a lot wouldn't.

[Bradley Marchand]

On occasion, you know, we do have to reach out to people and generally at the end of a case. So let's say, okay, let's do the same scenario, Kevin's third cousins of a serial killer, and we start researching all these other family trees to give you a perspective. One of my cases, I think it got up to 3,000 people that I had to piece together in this massive network of family trees. My most recent case that was a solve. I think it was under, I want to say it was under 400 people. That was my fast case that was solved in just a few days.

[Anya Cain]

We appreciate Bradley for joining us and please listen to the second part of the conversation in our next episode.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email [e-mail]. if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[Anya Cain]

If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com. if you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com murdersheet. We very much appreciate any support.

[Kevin Greenlee]

Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the [e-mail] if you're looking to talk with

[Anya Cain]

other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.

[Bradley Marchand]

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